tHE CLiNIc Of no RETuRn
by EM-D8
Summary: Darius is sent to babysit the pokemon patients on the Third Floor of the Clinic. Piece of cake. Which is what they say at the beginning of all movies where everything goes wrong.
1. On the Third Floor

If Darius had to point out the thing most unerving about this particular Nurse Joy, he'd have to say her wings. That or her glaring red eyes, jagged horns, long black claws or devil tail. But it was a close call. Her long, ragged, leathery black wings were much larger than Darius himself, and he found himself edging away from him.  
  
Nurse Joy was all smiles and happiness, appearing to be oblivious to the hell-like fumes erupting from her mouth with every breath. It seemed to be the only thing out of place in the building she was leading him up to; all smooth and white and shiny. The automatic doors were silver and slid open without a sound, and tiny lights illuminated the clinic's sign.  
  
Darius did a double take. tHE CLiNIc Of no RETuRn? He learned back to double check the roughly gathered letters, but the automatic doors hissed shut with a force garenteed to cut off whoever's head was held there.  
  
He swallowed. His mother had always told him that his imagination would get his a good job as a writer or mass murderer. But now he wasn't sure it was his imagination. He wished he'd never offered to babysit the Special Needs pokemon on the Third Floor.  
  
"Why does the sign say that the Clinic has no return?" he asked.  
  
"Well, are patents are all better, so they don't need to return, do they?" replied Joy brightly. "This way please, Mr Fied."  
  
Another Nurse Joy stood behind it. Her eyes were a dead yellow, the stagnant colour that bottled water turns if you don't shake it every two years. She wrote down his name and occupation. The Nurse Joy behind him laughed, and everything jolted. It was his imagination. She wasn't a demon at all. He let out a sigh of relief.  
  
"Your hand, please, Mr Fied." Darius held out his wrist, and the Nurse Joy stamped it. "Thank you for offerning to look after the pokemon on the Third Floor."  
  
A bolt of lightning shook the building. Lights dimmed briefly. Darius looked around, nervous. "Did you hear that?"  
  
"Hear what?" the first Nurse Joy said, leading him away. "It's just we don't get many people volenteering to look after the Third Floor occupants."  
  
Another flash. The lights crackled and went out for barely a second, but it was enough. "What was that?" he asked, terrified.  
  
"What was what?" she asked. "Anyway, those pokemon up ahead are charming, if not a little difficult. It'll only be a four a few weeks."  
  
"Weeks?"  
  
"Many people find it hard to escape from the Third Floor."  
  
By this time they were in the lift, and the doors slammed shut at the third bolt of lightning, plunging them in blackness.  
  
"Oops, silly me. I forgot the lights." Nurse Joy hammered the lift power box. "I just hope the lift cable doesn't snap again," she said. "There are an awful lot of basement floors. Anyway, where were we? Ah yes. We need the Third Floor."  
  
The lift stopped. Darius, petrified, stood waiting for the doors to open. They remained locked.  
  
"This way," Nurse Joy said, walking in the opposite direction. "Don't worry, Mr Fied. A lot of people are confused by the Third Floor doors."  
  
The lift doors snapped behind him as he stepped out onto the corridor. The rumble shook the building.  
  
"Yes, such lovely words," Nurse Joy said to herself. She started singing. "The Third Floor, Third Floor, THIRD FLOOR..."  
  
Darius grasped a door frame- that was standing in the middle of the corridor- as the building leapt around violently. The earthquake soon stopped, and he let go of the frame with an odd sort of drunkenness.  
  
"Thanks again, Mr Fied," Nurse Joy said, stepping back into the lift. "You'll find everything you need here. We'll be back in a week. Thanks for looking after the Third Floor occupants."  
  
At those fatal words, the lift doors snapped shut and a heavy metal vault locked itself over the entrance. Darius took a deep breath and stepped through the nearest door.  
  
Nothing happened. Not surprising, since this was the same door frame he'd held onto earlier. It was just standing there. Darius stepped through it several times, each time more confused. Finally he spotted another door, opened it, and stepped through.  
  
The notice said. "Third Floor occupants" and it had a picture of a lightning strike.  
  
E/N: Do not be scared. This part of the story is the serious bit. For, as Tomanculastic Gregoriano III will say later, things are not always as they seem. (Remember I said that. Look out for it in the next chapter). 


	2. Not always as they seem

After all this, Darius Fied had been expecting a text-book horror movie. Prehaps the occupants were playing poker with blooded kinves bradished...  
  
He was more than a little surprised, then, when he opened the door to find a kitchen in front of him. A list of paper was pinned to the wall. "Gone Fishing".  
  
Confused, Darius pushed open a door to his right. The notice said, "The perfect room". He almost took a step into it, but realised just in time that there was no floor. Just a void of nothingness stratching down for miles. A lot of basement floors indeed, he thought. The rest of the room- the walls and ceiling- were painted bright colours, and a door stood at the other end. With no way to get to it, Darius closed the perfect room's door and stepped back into the kitchen.  
  
He opened the other door out of a kitchen. It led into a living room with an upside-down television standing in one corner, and a pot plant with bows tied all over it in another. The rest of the room was filled with sweet wrappers. A black thing sat in front of the TV, watching an upside-down programme that appeared to involve various pokemon fishing in a bathtub.  
  
"Darry!" said the Thing, and it bounded up to him. Darius was only a little startled as the Thing revealed to be a houndoom, which had- he shook his foot violently- attached itself to his leg. Luckily by hugging.  
  
"How'd you know my name?"  
  
"I know everything!" the houndoom said. "I'm Cherry, the huggable houndoom! And I loooove EVERYTHING! Especially hugs."  
  
"I noticed," Darius mumbled, wading through sweet wrappers to another door, Cherry still clamperled onto his foot.  
  
With some difficulty, he reached the door. It led into a bedroom, in which sat two more pokemon. "Good lord," he murmured.  
  
A treeko and a lugia were bouncing on the beds. The treeko was throwing what appeared to be Brussles sprouts at the lugia, who was blasting attacks at them, and often the wall.  
  
"Darrryyyy's heeeeeeeeere!" Cherry squealed, starting to cut of Darius's circulation.  
  
In answer the treeko threw a sprout at her. She laughed. "I loooove sprouts!"  
  
"Hello!" The lugia said brightly, bounding up higher. "I'm Spirit, and this is Mardi-Gras!"  
  
"Pancakes!" Mardi-Gras said, throwing another sprout at Spirit. She burnt it up in an Aeroblast, as well as half the wall. To Darius's surprise, the hole opened into a stretch of grass instead of sky, which is what you'd expect on the third floor.  
  
"I have SSCC!" Mardi-Gras said, throwing another sprout. He seemed positively happy about it. "Severe Sprout Catapaulting Condition!"  
  
"Yeah? Well I'VE got a name!" Spirit said happily. "You want to hear my life story?"  
  
"YEAH!" Mardi-Gras said, still bouncing. "Then I'll tell you mine!"  
  
"Maybe later, OK guys? I'd love to hear them, but I've got to meet everyone else..." He looked around, unable to hide hopefulness in his voice. "Unless you're the only ones?"  
  
"No, There are MILLIONS moooore!" Cherry said. "I'll show you!"  
  
Sighing, Darius let himself be dragged through another door. This led into the bathroom. In here was the bathtub from the television, complete with pokemon fishing.  
  
"Ooh! Ooh! I saw you on TV? Can I get your autograph?" Cherry yelled, leaping of Darius's foot long enough for it to stop swelling.  
  
"Later," an espeon said quietly. "We are concentrating."  
  
Darius turned to watch a raichu and umbreon fumbling with a fishing rod. "I got one!" the raichu shouted, hauling out a rubber duck.  
  
"Ducky?" the umbreon said, unhappily. "Why're you so sad?"  
  
"It's HIM!" the raichu said, turning to Darius. He bounded off the bath and started bowing at his feet. "I praise you, oh great One."  
  
"Thanks," Darius said, confused. "And you are?"  
  
"Honoured," the raichu said.  
  
"That's your name?" Darius said.  
  
"No, my name's Blep. But I'm very honoured."  
  
"I'm Liverpool," the umbreon said, cradling the rubber duck. "Somebody was mean to Ducky."  
  
"That is Wise Tom," Blep said, pointing to the espeon. "He knows EVERYTHING."  
  
"He told us about you," Cherry said, leeching herself back onto Darius's foot.  
  
"Actually, his real name's Tomanculastic Gregoriano III. But that's a bit long," Blep pointed out.  
  
"So... Cherry, Mardi-Gras, Spirit, Blep, Liverpool and Tom..." Darius counted on his fingers. "Is that everyone?"  
  
"Maybe," Tom said. "But things are not always as they seem."  
  
"He means that there's Sinner," Liverpool said.  
  
"And what's Sinner?" Darius asked.  
  
"Invisible."  
  
E/N: You have got to say Tom's name out loud before you may proceed. Tomanculastic Gregoriano III= Tom-ann-cue-lass-tick Greg-or-ee-ann-no the Third. I put a lot of thought into that name. Get it right. Please. Anyway, hoped you liked. More coming soon! Please review. 


	3. BEWARE OF MUFFsmudge

"Let me get this straight," Darius said, discreetly trying to prise Cherry off his foot. "There's an invisible pokemon running around this place?"  
  
Liverpool nodded. "He's my bestest friend."  
  
"What kind of pokemon is Sinner?" Darius asked.  
  
"We don't know. He's invisible," Blep insisted. He turned to Liverpool. "But he's here."  
  
"You mean your friend's a ghost?" Darius asked, turning to Liverpool.  
  
"No," she said. "Sinner's not a ghost. But no-one can see him."  
  
"Does he talk to you?"  
  
"Sometimes, the blank one talks," Tom said, an essence of wiseness settling around him. "Sometimes, he disrupts our honourable games of Scrabble. He may choose to become sighted, but remains hidden always."  
  
Darius nodded. "Ri-ight. So where is he now?"  
  
Cherry looked up. "We don't knoooow! We can't seeeee him, remembuuuur?"  
  
"Get Mardi-Gras to tell you about it," Liverpool said.  
  
"He's telling me his life story later," Darius said. Immediatly he wished he hadn't.  
  
"Ooh! Me too! Please!"  
  
"Would you listen to mine?"  
  
"One wishes to tell---"  
  
"Before that," Darius interrupted, an idea springing into his head. "Before that, I think I'd better wait for Sinner to come... so I can introduce him."  
  
"I'm here!" said a voice from under the bathtub. Darius bent down to look under, and saw a green thing there.  
  
"Is that Sinner?" he asked.  
  
Bleh started screaming. "HE'S HEEEEERE! RUUUUUUN!"  
  
"Who knows where he might be?" Liverpool said, looking genuenly frightened.  
  
"But I can see him..." Darius said, looking under the bath again.  
  
"No you can't," said the green thing. "You're imagining it."  
  
"Listen, I know what I see, and I see you, Sinner."  
  
There was a murmuring behind him, and Darius noticed that Cherry had detached herself from his leg and was talking with them. Tom turned back to Darius. "Please, come with us."  
  
They led him through the bedroom, where Spirit was in the middle of a very interesting story, and Mardi-Gras was listening intentively, occasionly throwing a sprout at the wall, which was splattered with green patches.  
  
Liverpool spoke. "Darry thinks he can see Sinner."  
  
The two pokemon exchanged nervous glances, and followed the group out of the bedroom, through the sweet wrappers and upside-down television, now showing reruns of Darius talking to the five pokemon there, and into the kicthen.  
  
Darius glanced nervously at his watch, before remembering that he was here for a week. Something about these six- and possible seven- was a little surreal. Before he tore his gaze away from his wrist however, he noticed the stamp he had been given. It said, "BEWARE OF MUFFsmudge"  
  
Darius tried to rub the smudge off, but it only became bigger. He became desperate. Beware of what? He had no time to think, however, as he found a muffin floating in front of him.  
  
BEWARE OF MUsmudge! MUsmudge!  
  
"Have a muffin," Tom said, letting it float in front of him.  
  
"Erm, no thanks," Darius said, edging backwards as they moved towards him. His back hit a door. The door of a perfect room. He grasped the doorframe as he went through (this time there was a door attached) and gasped as the six of them moved towards him.  
  
"Go on," Liverpool said. "It can't hurt." There was a very evil glare in her eyes as she said that.  
  
Spirit made a move forward suddenly, and Darius, leaning back, let go of the door frame.  
  
E/N: Oh no! Poor Darius. Surrounded by insanity... I wonder what will happen next? Please review, and you might find out! Or I might have updated already... um... Review and you get a free MUFFsmudge! 


End file.
